Waypoints: Flying car concept falters

The decision by the Chinese owners to then shut down the U.S. development operation is just another speed bump in the aircraft’s tortured path toward production.

It was March 19, 2009, when I flew my Bonanza to Bedford, Massachusetts, and rented a car to drive to the Boston Science Center for the reveal of what was promised to be a surprising advancement in aviation. If only I’d had a flying car, I could have skipped the rental car part.

To much fanfare and media coverage, the new Terrafugia Transition was unveiled with the news that it had made its first flight on March 5, 2009, off the 11,000-foot-long runway at Plattsburgh, New York. So, this wasn’t a vaporware announcement. This unusual two-place, four-wheel vehicle with its folding wings, pusher propeller driven by a Rotax engine, and turn signals had already flown—a feat not seen since Molt Taylor launched his Aerocar in 1949. Developed in secret by a team of MIT engineers led by the husband-and-wife team of Carl and Anna Dietrich, the flying car was expected to be certified in the LSA category and delivered in 2011 for $194,000. You could get a production slot on the spot for $10,000.

Shortly after the introduction, the Transition was trucked to Manhattan and other locations for innumerable media appearances on the morning shows.

While everyone called it a “flying car,” the MIT team quickly switched to “roadable airplane” because it was never designed to replace your daily driver. Nonetheless, pundits wondered what would happen when it got dinged in the parking lot at Safeway, for example. Would your A&P need to be called or could Maaco take care of that?

Developed in secret, this unusual two-place, four-wheel vehicle with its folding wings, pusher propeller driven by a Rotax engine, and turn signals had already flown. No vaporware here.Alas, that question and many others never got answered as the project dragged on for more than a dozen years, with the price rising to as much as $400,000. Like other aircraft development projects, the Transition suffered not only from a rising price tag but also from increased weight. The company applied for and was granted an exemption that allowed the Transition to go from the basic LSA weight of 1,320 pounds to 1,430 pounds, the maximum weight for an LSA seaplane. Later it applied for an increase all the way to 1,800 pounds, the increases necessary to support the demands of safety gear required to meet the highway traffic standards.

Also not unusual, the small company struggled for funds as the project dragged on. In 2017, the Chinese Zhejiang Geely Holding Group purchased Terrafugia. While work on the Transition continued, the Chinese company seemed more interested in using the technology to advance its concepts for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicles. At this writing, the Zhejiang Geely website currently shows several highly stylized VTOL concepts and a roadable aircraft concept that is much sleeker than the last prototype Transition displayed in the United States. The website also reports that the company “will continue to promote the development of Terrafugia’s flying car plans with strengthened R&D efforts in the United States.”

However, according to Forbes magazine reports in February, between 80 and 100 employees at Terrafugia were walked out the door of the Woburn, Massachusetts, headquarters amid reports that continued development of the product would take place in China.

Meanwhile, the Dietrichs and many of the original MIT graduates who started Terrafugia have left the organization and found employment working on eVTOL projects.

So, while it’s still possible you may someday see a Transition cruising down the 101 next to you, it’s more likely you’ll see an eVTOL overhead carrying a little of that Terrafugia DNA. And it’s most probable the flying car concept will remain just that. Not vaporware, but still unobtanium.

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